Sunday, April 01, 2012

Sunset Crater eruption

Arizona's Sunset Crater began erupting shortly before dawn this morning, for the first time since around the year 1150. The Arizona seismic monitoring network began recording dozens of small earthquakes just after midnight, and these are now thought to be harmonic tremors, signalling the movement of magma towards the surface. An alternative explanation is the ground shaking was due to near simultaneous uncapping of multiple home brews that were started at NAU as students returned from spring break two weeks ago.

The person who answered the call to the National Volcano Observatory early this morning said, "Say what? How did you get this number? We're on the no-call list," and promptly hung up.

The Arizona State Legislature was called into emergency session to consider a resolution blaming the US Dept. of the Interior for the eruption.

Many Sedona residents are reported on their way to see what is being called a 'harmonic convergence' and the 'mother of all vortices'. At least six coffee houses in Flagstaff are offering new products combining the words 'lava' and 'java' in various ways.